[:en]The law on whistleblowers awaits the implementation in practice

In 2017, The Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Prishtina found itself in a storm after a professor heavily accused some of his colleagues of mismanagement. Arben Hajrullahu, a professor from 2006, said publicly that there was an organised group inside the University of Prishtina that would not allow him to be admitted as a professor.

Hajrullahu, in different media interviews, explained that he started working as a professor in this faculty in 2006, when he was admitted after he won a selection process, proving that he finished doctoral studies in Vienna, Austria.

A decade later, the Faculty of Political Sciences opened a position for a professor for Hajrullahu’s place, and after Hajrullahu won again, the official competition was canceled because the selection committe said that this time, Hajrullahu could not prove that he did finish Bachelor level studies. Hajrullahu considered this a nonsense, saying that he used the same academic credentials to get a Masters and a PhD in Vienna, and he was also admitted in the same position at the faculty using the same Bachelor diploma in 2006.

With these public appearances, Hajrullahu became one of the first officials to denounce the mismanagement and corruption inside a public institution, thus becoming one of the first whistleblowers in Kosovo, in a process known as whistleblowing. The whistleblowers are now officially protected by law, after the Assembly passed the Law on Protection of Whistleblowers in November 2018.

Until now, without a proper legal framework, the whistleblowing process was regulated only by the Law on the Protection of Informants, which experts considered to be incomplete. Flutura Kusari, an expert on media law, argued that this law was named wrongly, did not recognise the external whistleblowing, did not regulate the procedure of whistleblowing and sanctions. Moreover, the law was in contradiction with the legal practices of European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Without legal protection, the whistleblowers often lost their jobs and were punished by courts for breaching the internal codes of businesses and other laws that regulate the publication of information. This situation was further aggravated by the fact that the whistleblowing as a concept is still in the first phases of development in Kosovo, and the institutions and other organizations are still more or less in the clouds about the role and the function of whistleblowers in society.

The Law on the Protection of Whistleblowers initially entered into force only in the part that regulates this process in public sphere – has filled all the legal holes and problems that were on the Law on Protection of Informants, which was also repealed in November.
The Ministry of Defense confirmed on Friday that the law has entered only partially in force because the part that regulates whistleblowing needs more consultation with private operators in order to clarify what are they supposed to do as the law foresees. The law specifies that this period should not be longer than a year.

In the meantime, Hajrullahu, now more than one year after he made the public denunciations for mismanagement in UP, says that despite that and media noise that came with that, the situation in the university continues to be the same and the main officials in the faculty still lack academic integrity and the wrongdoers still hold the key positions, while the misuse methods get more sophisticated.

“Even if someone tries to challenge the malfunctions, there usually is some marginal debate, some call it ‘noise’, while the silence covers the academic community and the responsible persons in decision-making positions pretend to know nothing about what is going on or try to do something superficial to deceive the public and the whole matter goes to dark”, says Hajrullahu.

He illustrates the situation within the UP with the antibiotic therapy, saying that there could be some improvement from time to time, but the total recovery never arrives.

“This way the wrongdoers, the manipulative parasites, which I call “manipulative elite” in an article, tend to get more sophisticated and resistant. There needs to be a “super therapy”, which in my opinion would be a vetting process for the whole staff”, he says.

One of the latest cases that proves that the legislation for the protection of journalists’ sources is not being applied is the scandal with the son of the Kosovo Intelligence Agency’s director, who was caught by the police in possession of guns and narcotics.

The case was initially reported by Koha Ditore daily newspaper in October this year. The newspaper reported that the Police, during a routine check-up, had pulled over a car in which were three persons, including the son of AKI director. During the inspection, the police found narcotic substances and guns in illegal possession. The newspaper also reported that the police did not report the case to the Prosecution as the procedure based on law says, and this was done only after the newspaper’s report.

One month later, a policeman was suspended because his supervisors inside the Police believed that he was the one who cooperated with the journalists and did a part in leaking the information related to the AKI directors’ case. Saranda Ramaj, the journalist who initially reported the case, later said that this may be the first ever case when the Kosovo Police reacts with a disciplinary measure against one of it’s own members because of suspicions of information leaking to the media.

Abit Hoxha, a researcher, says that the whistleblowers are still not accepted culturally by the Kosovo institutions. Bearing in mind that Kosovo is a small country, Hoxha says that the whistleblowers do not have enough “space to breath” inside the institutions, but also do not have the proper support by the general public.

“Almost the same as with the witnesses protection, Kosovo has still not created a culture that appreciates the whistleblowers work. We have seen the cases in [institutions] like Tax Administration of Kosovo or Procredit Bank, where the whistleblowers are moral winners, but did not have the proper protection from the society and institutions”, he says.

The whistleblowing process continues to be in the initial phases of development en route to become a necessary phenomenon used to ensure the institutions checks and balances based on law, while the institutions are still not able to properly defend the whistleblowers.

Author: Arian Lumezi

This article is a production of the Association of Journalists of Kosovo under the project “Western Balkan’s Regional Platform for Advocating Media Freedom and Journalists Safety”, funded by the European Union. The content of this publication can in no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union.